Press-NY Post

BACON WHOOPEE!

Written by Carla Spartos

BACON:
It's not just for breakfast anymore.

Everybody's
favorite pork product has hit the dining room in a whole new array of delicious
guises from sticky-sweet bar snacks to smoky bourbons to decadent
butterscotch-filled doughnuts. And ba-connoisseurs not to mention the blogs,
clubs and societies that cater to them are salivating for more.

The
latest entry in the bacon bonanza: this Sunday's Bacon Takedown at Radegast
Hall (113 N. Third St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn) in which 30 contestants will
"ride the bacon war pig" by each whipping up a bacon-based dish. For
$10, attendees will get to sample them all, then vote on their favorite.

"I
imagine it being total pandemonium," says event organizer Matt Timms, who
is capping attendance at 300.

"I
semi-anticipated that there'd be a bacon cult, but I didn't realize how insane
they'd be. People love bacon. Obviously. I mean, it's delicious."

But
not all contestants are going the savory route. "Bacon is fatty, salty and
tastes good on anything including cupcakes," says Keavy Landreth, the
26-year-old owner of Kumquat Cupcakery, who is creating a maple pecan and bacon
cupcake for the competition.

Indeed,
Landreth likens bacon's popularity to that of the cupcake both have always been
considered delicious, even if they seem to be capturing an inordinate amount of
the public imagination lately.

Such
cultlike devotion will be explored in "Bacon: A Love Story," blogger
Heather Lauer's forthcoming paean to pork. Promising to be the "most
comprehensive book about bacon to date," it will include sections on
cooking and curing methods, not to mention the occasional recipe for bacon
brownies and even a bacon Bloody Mary, when it's published in May.

When
Lauer started her Bacon Unwrapped blog almost four years ago, the bacon craze
was just getting under way. Now, bacon sales are up and while Lauer thinks the
trend is at least partly "media driven," she says its popularity can
also be attributed to "a backlash to political correctness finding its way
into food."

Sure,
we're striving to eat healthier, but bacon appears to be "the one thing
that people are unwilling to give up," she says.

Fittingly,
the big question at Sunday's Bacon Takedown is whether any of the contestants
will show up with a version of the Bacon Explosion the barbecue recipe that
became an Internet sensation a few months ago. A variation on what's known in
the barbecue world as a "fattie," it's basically a monstrous
bacon-wrapped, bacon-stuffed sausage. "There's an element of shock to
it," admits its co-creator Jason Day.

Even
more shocking: Day and his bbqaddicts.com partner Aaron Chronister just landed
a six-figure book deal with Scribner and expect their cookbook (working title:
"Barbecue Makes Everything Taste Better") to hit shelves in 2010. Not
bad for a couple of guys from Kansas City who hit the competitive barbecue
circuit only last year.

Still,
the recipe has been divisive, even among swine enthusiasts.

"The
Bacon Explosion made me want to throw up. You can go too far with anything
especially a rich food like [bacon]," says contestant Jennifer Sanders,
32, of the Upper East Side. Still, she says she plans to make a tamale
featuring three kinds of bacon at the Takedown.

The
Bacon Explosion is just the latest example of bacon gone berserk you can now
buy bacon-flavored mints and bacon-print suits prompting a bacon backlash of
sorts in the media. Last year, Salon published an article that asked,
"Will hype and gimmickry (bacon cocktails, anyone?) spoil the great salty
meat?" Local food blog Grub Street has also been critical of the bacon
juggernaut, boldly declaring it had "jumped the shark" meaning the
craze has gotten so over-the-top, it's become a parody of itself.

Of
course, bacon aficionados are quick to challenge the haters.

"What
is more annoying than an overexposed trend? How about people who think it's
trendy to declare a trend dead?" wrote Heather Lauer in Bacon Unwrapped
earlier this month. Bacon Takedown's Timms agrees. "All it will ever be is
delicious . . . I don't see people getting sick of bacon anytime soon."

In
fact, Timms was so incensed by the suggestion that bacon was "over,"
he wrote a defense of it on his blog, chili-takedown.com: "I can
understand hating on skinny jeans and faux-hawks and sunglasses at night, but
bacon? The fact that bacon is getting a little bit more love than usual in this
day [and] age is a GOOD THING! Bacon is hip right now? I love 2009!"

*
Booze: The mad-scientist bartenders at East Village bar PDT (113 St. Marks
Place; 212-614-0386) use a technique called "fat-washing" to subtly
infuse brown booze with bacon. Try it in the bar's signature Benton's Old
Fashioned: bacon-infused Four Roses bourbon, maple syrup and angostura bitters.
At Double Down Saloon (14 Avenue A; 212-982-0543), bacon-infused vodka is used
to make the house martini, not to mention an eye-opening Bloody Mary.

* Salads: How do you improve upon a
salad? Toss chunks of crispy pork belly with sweet watermelon, pickled
watermelon rind and a tangle of fresh herbs as they do at Fatty Crab (643
Hudson St.; 212-352-3590; 2170 Broadway; 212-496-2722).

*
Sandwiches: Sure, BLTs are great but minus the LT they're also pretty darn
tasty. David Chang built his Momofuku empire (multiple locations; momofuku.com)
on the strength of steamed buns filled with lush pork belly, cucumbers,
scallions and hoison sauce. Or do like the Brits, and slather a bacon sandwich
English back bacon on buttered white bread with tangy HP sauce at Tea &
Sympathy (108 Greenwich Ave.; 212-989-9735).

* Nothing but bacon: Not much tops the primal pleasure of tucking into a
slab of bacon washed down with a mug of beer. Go medieval at steakhouses like
Peter Luger (178 Broadway, Brooklyn; 718-387-7400) and Porter House New York
(Time Warner Center, 10 Columbus Circle; 212-823-9500) or at downtown's cozy
beer bar Jimmy's No. 43 (43 E. Seventh St.; 212-982-3006). Now through Sunday,
Jimmy's is pairing Schneider-Weisse beers with slab bacon and apple salad or
braised pork belly with Brussels sprouts and pecans